recent redhat-artwork/Bluecurve updates (w/ screenshots)

Jens Knutson jensknutson at yahoo.com
Sun Aug 17 03:27:29 UTC 2003


[Whoops..  I sent this directly to Garrett a few days ago, meant it to
go to the list.  Anyhow, here goes...]

The new Bluecurve looks very nice, espcially the "Slate" variant!  I
did have a couple things that I thought need attention, though...

* the stock mime type icons have one major annoyance - despite their
otherwise very pleasing appearance, they all seem to use the awful
(IMHO) "piece of paper" anachronism.  The HIG does a great job of
explaining why this is a Bad Idea(TM) here:

http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/1.0/icons.html#document_icons

Is there a particular reason for using the "piece of paper" idea, or is
it just because it's a (unfortunate) de-facto standard?

* the new color variants on Bluecurve are cool, but what happened to
that nice yellowish theme from back in the Bluecurve .5x days?  I was
rather fond of that...  any chance that'll go back in?

* the new Metacity theme also looks great, but the new, smaller buttons
are not Fitt's Law compliant - the buttons really ought to stretch to
the edges of the window border, despite the fact that it looks much
better the way you're doing it now... :-/

* all menus now have a thick border around them - this also creates
Fitt's Law problems.  For example - open Epiphany, visit a few
websites, and then right-click to get the context menu, and hit the
"Back" menu entry.  You'll have to move your mouse to get to the
target.  If the border weren't there (like in older versions of
Bluecurve!), you'd already be at your target, and would only have to
click.

* Finally, Bluecurve could use a few more... well, curves?  The new
curved bottom window corners look awesome, but what about the
widgets?  They're so straight-edge and right-angled.  Ximian's
Industrial is a nice compromise between softer, rounded edges, and
maintaining a professional look, and Mandrake's Galaxy theme isn't too
bad in this regard either.  Toning down Bluecurve's harsh edges might be
a nice enhancement.

That's it!  I wish I could to more than just complain, but I've got
approximately *zero* art skill. ;-)  I hope this feedback is useful to
you - let me know if you want me to bugzilla all this stuff!

Thanks,

- jck

-- 
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all
progress depends on the unreasonable man."

 - George Bernard Shaw





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